1 Boring Old Man

Chilcot inquiry: US said Iraqis would welcome invasion
guardian.co.uk
by Richard Norton-Taylor
1 December 2009

^{British attempts to persuade the US to plan for the consequences of an invasion of Iraq foundered on a "blind spot" in Washington where senior officials thought "everyone would be grateful and there would be dancing in the streets", the Chilcot inquiry into the war was told today. There was "a touching belief [in Washington] that we shouldn’t worry so much about the aftermath because it was all going to be sweetness and light", added Edward Chaplin, head of the Middle East department of the Foreign Office at the time. It was assumed that all would be well, especially if power was handed to an exiled opposition spokesman such as Ahmed Chalabi. "We said [to the Americans] they had very little credibility in Iraq," Chaplin told the inquiry. It is known that Chalabi was feted by the neocons in Washington, including those in the Pentagon who took over the job of deciding how Iraq should be run after the invasion…}

^{Today, Chaplin and Sir Peter Ricketts, then political director at the FCO, said they were dismayed by the way the Bush administration failed to take the issue seriously, despite personal appeals from Tony Blair to George Bush. Evidence at the inquiry continued to paint a picture of a British administration led by Blair desperately trying – and initially persuading Bush – to go down the UN route to achieve international consensus on Iraq. But if that were to fail, Blair would join the US-led invasion. "If the UK was to be part of a military operation, it was essential we exhausted every [diplomatic] option," said Ricketts. "The threat of force became more and more obvious," he added.}

^{In further evidence of the advice to Blair before his crucial meeting with Bush at the president’s ranch at Crawford, Texas, in April 2002, 11 months before the invasion, Ricketts said there were "very serious doubts there was any legal basis for [military action] at that time". He referred to a leaked document in which Jack Straw, the then foreign secretary, warned Blair: "The rewards from your visit to Crawford will be few. "The risks are high, both for you and the government. I judge that there is at present no majority inside the PLP [parliamentary Labour party] for any military action against Iraq."}

^{One inquiry panel member, the historian Sir Martin Gilbert, referred to a Cabinet Office paper drawn up at the time. It warned: "A legal justification for invasion would be needed. Subject to law officers’ advice, none currently exists. This makes moving quickly to invade legally very difficult. We should therefore consider a staged approach, establishing international support, building up pressure on Saddam, and developing military plans". The inquiry heard that shortly after the Crawford meeting, in late April 2002, Blair asked the MoD to start contingency planning for military action in secret.}

^{In the event of military action, Ricketts told the inquiry, Lord Boyce, then chief of the defence staff, needed the agreement of the government’s law officers. That was an "absolute requirement", said Ricketts. On 7 March 2003, less than a fortnight before the invasion, Lord Goldsmith, the attorney general, advised that British commanders could be arraigned before the international criminal court if they joined the US-led invasion. Boyce, who is giving evidence to the Chilcot inquiry later this week, subsequently demanded "unequivocal" advice that an invasion would be legal.}

^{He was later given that advice on a small piece of paper, after the attorney general’s office contacted Downing Street, which said it was "unequivocally" Blair’s view that Iraq had committed new breaches of UN resolutions. Today, Lord Steyn, a former law lord, said Blair led Britain into an "illegal" war to get rid of Saddam Hussein and expected the inquiry to say so. He said the invasion "encouraged disrespect for the law by authoritarian regimes who copied the words and examples of George W Bush and Tony Blair"…}

Ministers kept Iraq war plan secret, Chilcot inquiry told
guardian.co.uk
by Richard Norton-Taylor
3 December 2009

^{The head of the armed forces at the time of the Iraq invasion said today he had been unable to prepare British troops properly for war because the government did not want the plans to become public knowledge. Admiral Lord Boyce told the Iraq inquiry that Geoff Hoon, then defence secretary, banned him from talking to a senior logistics official, and that the timetable was so tight that one unit, the Desert Rats of 7th Armoured brigade, was not operational until the day before the invasion. The former chief of defence staff also described how, after expressing concern about the legality of the invasion, he finally received a "one-liner" from Lord Goldsmith, the attorney general, giving him the go-ahead…}

^{Boyce said the defence chiefs "ramped up" planning for possible war after a key meeting between Tony Blair and George Bush at the US president’s ranch in Crawford, Texas, in April 2002, 11 months before the invasion. A small group of officials began to draw up contingency plans, he said. More detailed planning was under way that autumn, Boyce explained. He added: "But I was not allowed to speak, for example, to the chief of defence logistics…}

^{"I was prevented from doing that by the defence secretary [Hoon] because of the concern of it becoming public knowledge that we were planning for a military contribution, which might be unhelpful in the activity in the UN to secure a security council resolution"…}

^{He said he had told Blair and the cabinet that the country needed a strong legal basis to go to war, "which obviously a second [UN] resolution would have completely nailed". The Butler inquiry into the use of intelligence to back an invasion heard that Boyce demanded an "unequivocal" view from the attorney general that an invasion would be lawful. Boyce said today he finally got it in a "one-liner" note from Goldsmith. Describing the night of the Commons vote in favour of invasion, Boyce said: "I was absolutely prepared to unhook ourselves [from the invasion]." "Would that have been humiliating for us?" he was asked. "We are living in a democracy," he replied.}

^{Boyce said there was a "complete reluctance" on the part of influential members of a "dysfunctional" Bush administration, notably defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld, to believe that Britain would not commit troops unless the diplomatic process had been exhausted and parliament approved. No matter how many times British officials said to senior American commanders, and to Rumsfeld in particular, that the UK would not commit itself to military force without going through the UN route, "’we know you say that, but come the day you will be there’ was the attitude," Boyce said…}

^{Boyce said Rumsfeld’s unwillingness to commit more troops to Iraq contributed to the breakdown of order – particularly around Baghdad – following the invasion. "I was always extremely concerned about the anorexic nature of the American contribution. The Americans at that particular stage were very much, ‘we’re going to do the war fighting, not the peacekeeping,’" said Boyce. He added: "Combine that with the obsession that Mr Rumsfeld had with his network-centric warfare and therefore to prove that you can minimise your number of troops because you had clever methods other than using boots on the ground, meant that, in my view, we were desperately under-resourced so far as those forces going towards Baghdad were concerned"}

Donald Rumsfeld: "dysfunctional" "anorhexic" "obsession" "network-centric" "under-resourced" [sounds like a mentally ill person to me].The picture being painted of our leadership is not particularly flattering. But there’s no reason to doubt what’s being said. The British kept pushing for legal justification for the invasion. They apparently had to convince us to even go through the U.N. at all. And in January 2003, before Powell’s speech, Bush told Blair that we were going to war no matter what happened in the U.N.

I saw a car today with an American flag on the antenna. It had patriotic magnetic stickers and those "support the troops" ribbons in a couple of colors on the trunk. There was a time when that’s the way the majority of cars around here looked. I guessed it was someone with a child fighting in the Middle East. As I read these reports of the Chilcot Inquiry, I kept thinking about all those cars back in 2003 and 2004, and the tremendous faith and support Americans put behind President Bush’s War on Terrorism – and his invasion of Iraq. It was such a colossal betrayal. I was a skeptic back then, but like most of us I kept my mouth shut. I wanted to "support our troops" too. I was confused by it all. It was hard for me to even suspect that they would make up reasons to commit us to a war – that they would exploit the people’s support – much of it reluctant – for some kind of idiosyncratic and concealed reason. But that’s exactly what they did. And I had no clue how inept they really were.